Burn Notice 6.18 - Game Change

Plot: Picking up immediately where the last episode left off, Fi crashes the party of her doctor acquaintance, Jed. He's not real interested in helping Sam, until Michael uses a little firearm persuasion. So Sam lives, narrowly, as our crew hole up in Jed's place for the night. Where they are attacked by members of a drug cartel. Based on the high quality satellite photos they brought with them, Mike concludes these are members of a cartel they tangled with previously, set on them by Riley. This is apparently a bridge too far, but it gives Michael something to use to get Bly on board with him.

All that's needed is to draw Riley out, then push her to contact the cartel, so they can catch her with him. Fortunately, this can be accomplished by getting Sam some real medical attention at a hospital. He rattles Riley's cage a little, after she replaces his morphine drip with a stimulant. So he'll hurt worse. Swell. Fi bugs Riley's car, they hear her set up a meeting, and Mike and Bly head over there to get the scoop. Which is that Riley's promising to help the cartel elude the DEA, if they eliminate Westen. This is big news. Pity Bly won't survive to tell anyone about it, as a cartel guy poses as a marina security guard and drops a grenade in Bly's lap.

Great. It's a bad scene, because all the evidence they'd collected went up with Bly and his Crown Vic. Which makes Mike a little desperate. More than he's been lately. He boards the ship (while Jesse and Fi engage all the cartel guys), and sets out for open waters, attracting the attention of the Coast Guard. Then he threatens Riley with destruction if she doesn't call in and not only confess what she's done, but also provide all the evidence she created to pin the work with the cartel on Michael. I'm not sure how it works, since she doesn't make the call until after Michael stops the boat, to avoid death. Once he stopped, wasn't she out of danger?

Well, anyway, it's initially unclear whether it worked, because we see Fi, Sam, Jesse, and Maddy in some detention facility. But they're brought out into a really fake looking set, and see Michael in a nice suit, giving people orders. He tries to explain to Fi that he had to make deals to save them from the various criminal actions they took, but she's not having it. She sees it as Michael once again taking advantage of the situation to get what he always really wanted - to be back fully in the intelligence fold. And that's where it ends, Fi crying, Mike looking, I'm not sure what that face was. That sort of befuddled, squinty look he gets, when he has no idea what to say.

The Players: Olivia Riley (CIA Heavy Hitter), Jason Bly (CSS Agent), Dr. Jed (Cokehead Plastic Surgeon/Sam's Only Chance), Alejandro Lopez (Cartel Kingpin)

Quote of the Episode: Michael - 'We can't stay here and we can't leave.' Madeline - 'Now you know what life with your father was like.' Michael - 'How did you deal with it?' Madeline - 'I made a choice, and I lived with the consequences.'

Does Fiona blow anything up? Well, there were some Molotovs. I guess that could count.

Sam Axe Drink Count: 0 (26 overall). No booze with meds, obviously.

Sam Getting Hit Count: 0 (8 overall).

Michael's Fake Laugh Count: 0 (2 overall).

Overall: It was pretty cold of Mike to mention the evidence was destroyed before mentioning that Bly died. I know they weren't friends, but he was helping you, Mike. Anyway, we have another name to add to the list of people who suffer for their association with Michael Westen. That list is getting really long.

At least now I understand why Michael never wears his seat belt. If you do, then you can't bail out of the car quickly if someone chucks grenades in the car.

Those backgrounds did look really bad. Like something out of an early episode of Power Rangers. I guess they didn't want to pick and move the filming to an area that actually had mountains.

I wonder if Michael escaping on a dirtbike was a callback to the pilot. If you remember, when Michael's first burned, he's in Nigeria, and it causes a deal to fall through. So he escapes angry guys in luxury cars by driving a dirt bike through a black market area. The other thing I noted from that escape sequence was that Riley could really move. Those shoes had some decent heels, and she was running on linoleum, but she was making tracks after him.

I'm still very disappointed in how Riley turned out. This whole thing about her losing it, being willing to do anything to catch Michael, was a real letdown. Why would she even think cartel guys could take Michael? Ooh, guys with guns, how scary. She already had guys with guns, and it wasn't doing her any good. If she knew he was at Dr. Jed's (and how could she find him there, but never found Schmidt's place), why not call in all the cops, feds, army, whoever, surround the house, then just go in? Mike isn't going to kill cops, so if you present him with so much force there's no other choice, you've got him.

So that's two seasons in a row where the big plot of the last third of the season was not to my liking. I will say I liked this better than the Anson arc. This was disappointing, Anson was just supremely irritating.